Welcome to Top Gear's Speed Week 2014

2014 has produced some incredible performance cars. All of which needed to travel 1,000 miles to Spain. As ever, Stig delivers

The TopGear magazine Speed Week 2014 begins with a gate. It's a substantial metal gate, currently blocking the narrow entrance bridge to the pit area of the Castellolí circuit. A neatly ironed security guard checks our identities before thumbing a button and allowing 10 feet of corrugated steel to slide slowly and inexorably right, and reveal the path to what promises to be God's own track battle. The most exciting performance cars of the past 12 months, two-and-a-half days, and a tricky, fast and flowing circuit threaded through the undulations of a pretty little valley just outside Barcelona. The sun is shining. The scent of warm tarmac hangs in the air undercut with a faint hint of super-unleaded, and there are empty meanders of tempting racetrack coiled under the bridge. This is going to be utterly magnificent.